
^ J- 




SPEECH 



OF 



HON. JOSEPH HOLT, 



OF KENTUCKY, 



AT mim HALL NEW YORE, 



SEPTEMBEE 3, 1861 



PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, NEW YORK. 



NEW YORK: 

G. P. PUTNAM, 532 BEOADWAY. 

OFFICE OF ''THE REBELLION RECORDS 
1861. 



SPEECH 



OP 



HON. JOSEPH HOLT, 

// 
OF KENTUCKY, 



AT mvmG HALL NEW YORK, 



SEPTEMBEE 3, 1861. 



PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, NEW YORK. 



NEW YORK: 

G. P. PUTNAM, 532 BROADWAY, 

OFFICE OF ''THE REBELLION RECORD:' 
1861. 



6 



X 



y^ 



At a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, New York, Thursday, September 5th, 
1861, it was unanimously 

Hesohed, That the thanks of the Chamber of Commerce be tendered to the Hon. 
Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, for liis eloquent, powerful, and patriotic address, delivered 
at Irving Uall, on Tuesday evening last. 

Hesohed, That he be requested to furnish the Chamber a copy for publication and 
for distribution ; and that the Executive Committee be authorized to carry this Resolu- 
tion into effect. 



SPEECH OF HON. JOSEPH HOLT 



AT A MASS MEETING, CALLED BY THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, IN 
IRVING HALL, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 3, 1861. 



The announcement in the papers September 2d, 
Rays a New York contemporary, that the Hon. Joseph 
Holt, the representative Union man of Kentucky, 
would address the people of New York, called to- 
gether through the rough and howling storm of Tues- 
day Evening the 3d, the largest audience which Irv- 
ing Hall is capable of containing. Long before the 
hour for Avhich the meeting was called every seat was 
occupied, and by eight o'clock every inch of stand- 
ing room was as hotly contested as the heights to the 
west of Washington. There was a large number of 
ladies in the galleries. 

The arrival of Mr. Holt was the signal for impetu- 
ous cheering — the whole audience rising, and waving 
hats and handkerchiefs. He was accompanied upon 
the platform by Pelatiah Perit, Chas. H. Marshall, 
John Jay, Peter Cooper, Prosper M. Wetmore, Eos- 
well C. Hitchcock, S. B. Chittenden, and others of 
the Chamber of Commerce, at whose soUcitatiou he 
had consented to speak. 

Wm. E. Dodge, Esq., called the meeting to order, 
and nominated Pelatiah Perit chairman of the meet- 
ing. The nomination was unanimously acceded to. 

Me. Pekit, on taking the chair, said : We 
are assembled this evening, to give a public 
reception to our distinguished fellow-citizen, 
the Hon. Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, (applause,) 
who is accidentally with us. Mr. Holt has 
been drawn to this city by business motives, 
and had not intended to take any part in any 
public demonstration ; but he has kindly yield- 
ed to the solicitations of the committee of the 
Chamber of Commerce and many distinguished 
citizens, and honors us with his company this 
evening. (Applause,) It might be a proper 
introduction to the proceedings of this evening 



to advert to a few of those unportant events 
which have given special prominence to Mr. 
Holt before the pubUc at this time. We all of 
us remember that doleful interval in our his- 
tory when the Executive Government appeared 
to be paralyzed ; when the army of the United 
States, under the ingenious arrangements of 
Mr. Floyd, had been scattered through remote 
regions, and was unavailable for any important 
purpose ; when the best arms of the Govern- 
ment had been carefully sent to those States 
which were ripe for secession ; and when the 
navy of the United States was scattered 
throughout remote parts of the earth, inacces- 
sible to the orders of the Government. It was 
under these circumstances that Mr. Holt ac- 
cepted the appointment of Secretary of War, 
(cheers ;) and I am sure that I do not ti-ans- 
gress the limits of truth when I say that it_ was 
owing to his firmness, and patriotism, and vigor, 
in a great measure, that our Government was 
savedlfrom ruin. (Applause.) I am sure that 
I utter the sentiments of all this large audience, 
when I say that we owe to Mr. Holt— there 
are due to him from every patriotic citizen-— cor- 
dial acknowledgments and everlasting gratitude 
for the services which he has rendered. I have 
the honor to introduce Mr, Holt to the Assembly. 

sPEEcn OF nox. joseph holt. 
Fellow- CiTizEKS :— It is to me a source of 
boundless rejoicing that the freemen of Ken- 
tucky are still permitted to call the freemen of 
New York their fellow-citizens. Traitors with- 
in and traitors without have striven unceas- 
ingly to drag that noble Commonwealth from 
the moorings of her loyalty, and to send her 
adrift upon that stormy sea of rebellion and 
treason on which so many of our States are 
being wrecked, but their seductions and their 
threatenings have proved alike unavailing. In 



4 



REBELLION RECORD, 1860-61. 



spite of all their violence and of all their 
treacherous efforts to rend them asunder, New 
York and Kentucky stand this night before the 
world as sisters. The freemen of Kentucky are 
still the brethren of the freemen of New York, 
bound together by the same blessed memories, 
kindled by the same transporting hopes, and^ 
animated by the same lofty, inflexible resolve 
to maintain the Union of these States, what- 
ever expenditure of life and of treasure the 
patriotic struggle may involve. Kentucky has 
not now, she never has had, the slightest sym- 
pathy with those conspirators who, at the head 
of armies and in the mad pursuit of power, are 
now reddening their hands in a nation's blood. 
She abhors them as Rome abhorred Catiline, as 
the American people abhor Benedict Arnold, 
as Christians abhor the memory of Judas 
Iscariot. Tliat abhorrence was fully expressed 
in her recent election ; and yet, in defiance and 
in contempt of that overwhelming popular de- 
monstration, the public papers now assure us 
that the secessionists are actively engaged in 
machinations to plunge that State into the hor- 
rors of civil war, simply and solely because she 
has refused to follow the example of Faust and 
sell herself to tlie Devil, If this be true, and, 
like the political bandits of Mexico and South 
America, they atrociously insist upon appealing 
from the popular vote to the sword, and strike 
the first blow, I predict it will then appear that 
the Union men of Kentucky, with all their sin- 
cere love of peace and desire for it, carry bul- 
lets as well as ballots in their pockets. 

Fellow-citizens, I wish I had language in 
which adequately to convey to you my most 
grateful sense of the warm and cheering recep- 
tion with which you have honored me to-night, 
and my sincere thanks to the distinguished 
chairman of this meeting for the graceful and 
tlatteriiig terms in which he has pjresentcd me 
to you. The very slight services which it has 
been my fortune to render to our common coun- 
try, and to wliicli he has rclorred in words of 
such hearty approval, have no claims to the 
generous appreciation wliicli they have here 
and elsewhere received. Had I, with better for- 
tune, been able to accomplish infuiitcly more, 
I should only have done my duty ; while I 
should have been abased in my own esteem, 
and utterly infamous before the world, had I 
done any thing less. 

When I accepted from the Chamber of Com- 
merce tlie liiglily-prizcd honor of appearing ])c- 
foro yon to-night, it was with the distinct un- 
derstanding tliut I would not inflict ui)on you 
a set political liarangue. An elaborate discus- 
sion of those topi(!s which now so painfully 
occupy tlic i)ublic mind is not at all necessary 
before the loyal men of New York. The fear- 
ful im[)ort of current events, and the stern du- 
ties which these events inqiose upon all who 
truly love tlieir country, are too wtdl under- 
stood by yourselves to make it incumbent upon 
me on this occasion to seek either to explain 
Ihcra or to impress them upon your con- 



sciences. A few thoughts, however, somewhat 
in connection with a journey which I have 
recently made through several of the loyal 
States, may be properly submitted for your 
consideration. 

Everywhere, I have found the most healthful 
and encouraging condition of the public senti- 
ment in reference to the prosecution of this war ; 
nowhere have I met with threatening or bluster, 
or any feehng of exasperation against the peo- 
ple of the South, but at every point, a calm yet 
stern determination to sustain the Government, 
mingled with a sadness whose depth and ten- 
derness I should in vain endeavor to describe. 
Strong and brave men, while speaking to me of 
our national dissensions and sorrows, have 
wept, and I honored them for it ; for if a brave 
man cannot weep over the threatened ruin of 
such a Government and country as ours, where 
is there the catstrophe, where the tomb that 
could touch his heart ? Everywhere all seem 
now to realize that this is not a war upon the peo- 
ple of the South, but rather in their defence and 
for their deliverance. If it were indeed waged 
against them, we might well lay our faces in 
the dust and confess that our glorious institu- 
tions are a failure ; but it is waged against a 
band of conspirators, who, having usurped the 
government of that distracted portion of our 
country, have established a military despotism 
there, and are, in the selfishness and remorse- 
lessness of their ambition, kindred in guilt to 
the very worst of those profligate men who in 
other ages and lands have disturbed the repose 
of nations. 

The public mind no longer occupies itself 
Avith discussions as to the causes of this war, 
nor wastes its logic in exposing the monstrosi- 
ties of the doctrine of secession. In the light 
of current and recent events, we well know 
what secession was intended to accomplish, 
and bitterly do we know what it has accom- 
plished, and we would now no more think of 
gravely examining its character and tendencies 
to prove it treasonable, than we would think 
of analyzing the kiss of Judas to show that it 
was full of the poison of treachery. 

Equally matured is the public judgment as 
to the consecpiences which would flow from 
the success of the rebellion. The providences 
of God and the most sacred compacts of men 
have made us one people, and the experience 
of three-quarters of a century has demonstrated 
that in tliis unity of government, of country, 
and of people consist at once our greatness and 
our happiness. To dismember these States now, 
and cast their wretched fragments upon the 
wild and bloody torrent of revolution to be- 
come the prey of every audacious spoiler, 
would be as fatal to our rejiose and freedom as 
a nation, and to all our hopes of future pros- 
perity, as the severance of our own bodies 
would be fatal to the life that is within ns. 

Equally tixed is the public mind in reference 
to the character of this war. It is not one of 
aggression, or conquest, or spoliation, or pas- 



DOCUMENTS. 



sloD, but, in every light in -which it can be re- 
garded, it is a war of duty. The struggle is in- 
tensely one for national existence, and so hal- 
lowed in its spirit and aims that the flock and 
the pastor, those who worship around, and 
those who minister at the altar, may contribute 
alike their blood and treasure in its support, in 
full assurance, that in so doing, they come up 
only to the requirements of a Christian and 
patriotic life. It is a war of duty, because un- 
der our Christian civilization no nation can 
commit suicide without the perpetration of a 
cowardly and infamous crime ; but, morally at 
least, that nation does commit suicide which 
surrenders up its life to an enemy from which 
courage and manhood could have saved it. It 
is a war of duty, because we have no right to 
bear our fathers' names and insult their mem- 
oiy by giving up, to be trodden under the feet 
of traitors, the noble institutions purchased by 
their blood. It is a war of duty, because we 
have no right to bestow our names upon our 
children stripped of that grand inheritance 
which belongs to them, and for the transmis- 
sion of which we are but the appointed agents 
of the illustrious men who won it by the sword 
and with their lives. It is a war of duty, be- 
caiise, devoted as we profess to be to law and 
order and to the highest interests of civiliza- 
tion, it is among our most pressing obligations 
to rebuke and chastise the daring crime, which, 
through the Southern rebellion, is being com- 
mitted, not only against ourselves, but against 
the very race to which we belong. It is tinaUy 
a war of duty, because we have assumed to 
ourselves as a people, the special championship, 
at once of the right and of the capacity of man 
for self-government, and that assumption has 
been accepted by the lovers of freedom every- 
where; and now, with the nations looking 
down upon us, as from the seats of some vast 
amphitheatre, we cannot, without treachery to 
our trust and complete self-degradation, sufii'er 
this sacred and sublime cause 'to be stricken 
down upon the battle-fields of the South, and 
left to perish there amid the jeers and con- 
tempt of kings and of despots. How often and 
how exultiugly have they prophesied this day, 
and how have they longed for its coming ! In 
the essential antagonism of their institutions to 
ours, and in their intense abhorrence of that 
system of government which gives the honors 
and fortunes of the world to the toiling mil- 
lions who are the architects of both, how glad- 
ly would each one of them to-day build a mon- 
ument to the skies, provided he could inscribe 
upon it these words : " In memory of the 
great Republic of the United States ; founded 
by Washington, destroyed by Toombs, Twiggs, 
and Floyd ! " What a record for humanity 
vould that be ! 

Fellow-citizens, I do but utter a truth which 
is now sadly present to all minds, when I say 
that the disloyalty in our midst, especially at 
Washington and in the border States, has been 
a fruitful source of disaster and discouragement 

\ 



since the very commencement of this fearful 
struggle. This evil has assumed, imder the for- 
bearance of the Government and people, such 
startling proportions, that its suppression is 
everywhere felt to be a paramomit duty on the 
part of the Administration. Its prevalence has 
been marked by the same treacheries and gross 
excesses which have been its unfailing character- 
istics in other ages and countries. Next to the 
worship of the Father of our spirits, the love 
of our native land is at once the strongest and 
the noblest sentiment of which our nature is 
susceptible. When that sentiment has been 
corrupted, like an arch from which the key- 
stone has been withdrawn, the whole moral 
character seems to tumble into ruins. The 
public and private profligacy of traitors and 
spies, both male and female, is vouched for by 
all history, and indeed has well-nigh grown 
into a proverb. The man who wUl betray his 
country will betray his God ; he will betray 
his kindred and friends, and, if need be, the 
wife of his bosom, and the children of his loins. 
This evil is to be overcome, not by mobs — 
whose action is for every reason to be deplored 
■ — but by the intrepidly exerted authority of 
the executive branch of the Government, fear- 
lessly assuming all responsibility, and by the 
yet more crushing power of public opinion, 
branding disloyalty as socially and politically 
infamous, whenever and wherever encountei*- 
ed. The Government can never attain to the 
moral power required to subdue this rebellion 
until society, whose corruption and ruin it 
seeks, shall have the courage within its own 
circles, and at its own firesides, to denounce 
and stigmatize treason and traitors as they are 
denounced and stigmatized by the Constitution 
and laws. Suppose you lived in one of those 
cities where there is not only a steam fire en- 
gine but a paid company to operate it, retained 
by the corporation, and your house being on 
fire, and this engine and company vigorously at 
work to extinguish it, suppose you saw from 
time to time men creeping out of the crowd 
and stealthily letting their knives into the hose 
from which the water was seen to spout in 
every direction, upon the street and pave- 
ments, how long do you think the presence of 
such miscreants would be tolerated ? But sup- 
pose, upon looking more closely into their faces, 
you should discover that quite a number of 
these men were members of the fire company, 
receiving their salaries from the very ti'easury 
to which you yourself had contributed. In the 
first burst of your indignation, would you not 
feel that if the wretches were thrown into the 
flames they were thus indirectly feeding, their 
punishment would not be too severe ? And yet 
this has been precisely the condition of the 
Government of the United States. The hose 
with which the Administration has been striv- 
ing to extinguish the fires of this rebellion, has 
been cut and cut continually by faithless and 
shameless ingrates living upon the public treas- 
ury. Vigorous and well-directed measures 



REBELLION RECORD, 1860-61. 



have been adopted to purge the Executive De- 
partments at Washington of these traitorous 
hose-cutters, and good progress lias been made 
in the patriotic work. From tlie manner, how- 
ever, in which information continues to reach 
the enemy, no doubt many of them yet remain, 
and are daily betraying the hand that feeds 
them. In this hour of imminent national dan- 
ger, and threatened calamity, none should be 
allowed to remain a moment in the public ser- 
vice Avhose loyalty is not above all suspicion, 
and no loyalty can now be trusted which is not 
open and known of all, and wliich is not ardent 
and unceasing in its manifestations. Stringent 
steps too have been taken in the treatment of 
spies and men otherwise disloyal outside of 
the public service, and the country has not only 
approved but has warmly applauded what has 
been done. The rebel clamor against the sus- 
pension of the action of the writ of Habeas 
Corpus, has not disquieted anybody's nerves. 
The popular intelligence fully comprehends that 
the Constitution and laws were established to 
perpetuate the existence of the Government, and 
not to serve as instruments for its overthrow 
by affording immunity to crime and perfect 
freedom of action to traitors. It may be safely 
assumed and declared that neither the private 
fortune nor the personal freedom of any man 
or set of men can be permitted to stand in the 
way of tlie safety of a republic upon whose pres- 
ervation depend the lives, the fortunes, and 
liberties of more than twenty-six millions of 
people. The Union must be preserved and the 
rebellion must be suppressed, and the country 
will sustain the Administration in the assump- 
tion and unhesitating exercise of all powers 
absolutely necessary for the accomplishment of 
these ends. A large part, however, of the dis- 
loyal men in our midst are beyond the reach of 
the observation and vigilance of the Govern- 
ment, and the correction of the evil must, 
therefore, largely depend upon the condemna- 
tion of public opinion. The men who give aid 
and comfort to the enemy by secretly furnish- 
ing them information, by advocating tbeir 
cause, by sowing dissension in our midst, by 
insidiously discouraging loyal citizens from en- 
tering tlie military service, arc more fatally the 
foes of our country than if they were in the 
ranks of the Confederate army, and they arc, 
morally at least, as guilty of the death of those 
wlio fall in defence of the Government as if 
they had met them with loaded muskets on 
the batthi-ficid — and they should be treated 
accordingly. I repeat it oinpliatically, they 
should bo treated accordingly. In railroad 
cars, and on steamboats, in every thorough- 
fare, and in every business and social circle, 
disloyulty should be reprobated and blasted as 
a lojjrous and loathsonic thing. • "When, there- 
fore, such men offer you tlieir hands, look well 
to them, and if you have the eyes wliich I 
have, you will see that they arc stained with 
tho blood of bravo and true men — it may bo 
your kindred and friends — who have perished 



and are perisliing still upon the battle-fields of 
the South, and you will turn away from them 
with indignation, scorn, and disgust. 

There are doubtless men — few in number, I 
think — who sincerely believe that — the ques- 
tion of public honor out of view — the Kepublic 
could be severed, a peace patched up, and that 
the two confederacies would live on thereafter 
as prosperously as before. A more false and 
fatal thought never crept, serpent-like, into an 
American bosom, and that man must be utterly 
unread in human history who can entertain it 
for a moment. You might as well expect that 
the boat which has been turned adrift above 
the cataracts of Niagara will have a tranquil 
voyage. If you will stand, as some of us have 
done, amid the ruins of the crumbled empires 
of the old world and ask them, they will all an- 
swer you, it is a delusion. If you will enter the 
cemetery of nations, and lay your ear to the 
sepulchres of those young and brave but pas- 
sion-led republics which have perished amid the 
convulsions of civil strife, they will tell you in 
accents of brokenness of heart, it is a delusion. 
But if you will not listen to the voices of the 
past, go to Mexico and South America, and ask 
the inhabitants of those bright lands, breathed 
upon, as they are, by the finest climates of the 
earth, occupying soils of exhaustless fertility, 
and living amid rivers and lakes and mountains 
of grandeur and of inspiration, and lifting up 
their bowed heads, amid demoralization and 
poverty and dishonor, they will tell you it is a 
delusion. 

I rejoice to believe that the spirit of loyalty 
dwells at this time richly and abundantly in 
the popular heart of the North and West. But 
I do beseech you — you who have so deep a 
stake in the present and in the future of our 
country — you men of culture, of fortune, and 
of moral power — I do implore that by all means 
possible you will add yet further to the power 
and to the fervor of that loyalty. If it grows 
cold amid the calculations of avarice or craven 
under the discouragements of defeat, our coun- 
try will be overcome. What the crisis de- 
mands is a patriotism which will abide the or- 
deal of fire ; which is purified from all selfish- 
ness and from all fear ; which is heroic and 
exhaustless, and which vows with every throb 
of life, if repulsed, it will rally, if stricken 
down it will rise again, and that under the 
pressure of no circumstances of reverse or sor- 
row or suffering shall the national flag be aban- 
doned or the lionor of the country be com- 
promised. What we need is a patriotism that 
rises to a full comjjrehension of tlic actual and 
awful peril in which our institutious arc placed, 
and that is eager to devote every power of 
body and mind and fortune to their deliver- 
ence — a ])atriotism, Avhich, obliterating all party 
lines aTid entombing all party issues, says to 
tho President of the United States : " Hero are 
our lives and our estates, take them, use them 
freely, use them boldly, but use them success- 
fully ; for, looking upon the graves of our fatheri^ 



DOCUMENTS. 



and upon the cradles of our children, we have 
sworn that, though all things else should per- 
ish, this Government shall live." That man 
who thinks of party organization, and party 
spoils, and who seeks to distract and divide the 
public mind with petty questions as to how the 
Government shall be administered, at a time 
when the enemy is at the very doors of the 
Capital, declaring that there shall be no Gov- 
ernment, is. in my judgment, false to the first 
and highest duty of an American citizen. 
When the children of the republic have been 
summoned as a band of brothers to battle for 
its very life, and when the banner of that re- 
public is floating mournfully over tented fields, 
every wrangling flag of faction or of party that 
dares lift itself in its presence, should be spurn- 
ed as a flag of disloyalty, if not of treason. It 
is sucli a patriotism as this, and such only, that 
will conduct you to victory, and I have un- 
speakable gratification in knowing that it is 
now being thoroughly awakened "throughout 
the loyal States. 

The capitalists of the country, risking every 
thing, have come forward with a grandeur of 
devotion to the country, which, while it will ex- 
cite the astonishment of Europe, has already in- 
spired the admiration and gratitude of every 
true American heart. All honor to them. They 
have proved that if there is much gold in Wall 
street, there is yet more patriotism there — not 
a summer patriotism that flourishes amid the 
paeans of victory, but a patriotism which strug- 
gles and sacrifices and suffers, even in the win- 
ter of adversity and amid the very gloom of 
national humiliation. Unless the American 
people can thus feel, there is imminent danger 
that the sun of our national life, now obscured, 
will yet go down forever amid storms and 
darkness. If all our great material interests 
are depressed and desolated by the shadow now 
resting upon that sun, what would be our con- 
dition were that sh'adow deepened into the 
night of permanent defeat ? Is there nothing 
to live for but the gains of our commerce and 
the embellishment of our estates and homes — 
nothing but our personal ease and comfort? 
Are honor and manhood and loyalty and na- 
tional fame and the respect and homage of the 
world nothing ? Is it nothing to live without 
a country and without a flag, without a future 
for ourselves and our children, and to stand 
forth the degenerate and abased descendants of 
a great ancestry? We might indeed abjectly 
lay ourselves in the dust and be stripped by 
traitor hands of all that ennobles and sweetens 
human existence, and still live on as do the 
cattle of the fields ; but our lives would be far 
more ignoble than theirs. If, with all our vast 
material resources, and our known and ac- 
knowledged superiority of physical force over 
the rebels; if, with all the profuse avowals of 
devotion to our institutions which we have so 
clamorously made, we still suffer this rebellion 
to triumph over us, I verily believe that the 
American name will become a stench in the 



nostrils of the world, and that an American 
citizen will not be able to walk the streets of a 
European Capital without having the finger of 
scorn pointed at him and without being covered 
with contumely and derision. 

If I might be permitted to speak a single word 
upon such a subject, I would earnestly counsel 
patience and forbearance in reference to those 
charged with the administration of the Govern- 
ment. Before criticizing, we should remember 
that we may not see the whole field of action, 
and may not therefore be in a condition justly to 
appreciate the difiiculties to be overcome. No 
man can doubt the courage or the loyalty of 
the President of the United States, or his deter- 
mination to suppress this rebellion. To him, 
under the Constitution, the public voice has ab- 
solutely committed the fate of the Republic ; 
his hands are emphatically your hands, and in 
weakening him, you necessarily weaken your- 
selves, and weaken the struggling country we 
are all laboring to save. He, too, is at this mo- 
ment overwhelmed with mountains of toil and 
of responsibility, such as have pressed upon no 
public man in our history, and he is fully enti- 
tled to all the support and consolation w'hich a 
generous and warm-hearted patriotism can pos- 
sibly give him. 

Fellow-citizens, amid all the discouragements 
that surround us, I have still an unfaltering 
faith in human progress and in the capacity of 
man for self-government. I believe that the 
blood which the true and the heroic lovers of 
our race have shed upon more than a thousand 
fields, has borne fruit and that that fruit is the 
Republic of the United States. It came forth 
upon the world like the morning sun from his 
chamber ; its pathway has been a pathway of 
light and glory, and it has poured its blessings 
upon its people in the brimming fulness with 
which the rivers pour their waters into the sea. 
I cannot admit to my bosom the crushing 
thought that in the full blaze of the Christian 
civilization of the nineteenth century such a 
Government is fated to fall beneath the swords 
of the guilty men now banded together for its 
overthrow. I cannot, I will notbelieve that 
twenty millions of people, cultivated, courage- 
ous, and loyal — twenty millions of the Anglo- 
Saxon race — bearing the names of the heroes 
of the Revolution and passing their lives amid 
the inspirations of its battle-fields, will ignomi- 
niously sufier their institutions to be overturned 
by ten millions, nearly one-half of whom are 
helpless slaves with fetters on their hands. No 
page of history so dark and so humiliating as 
this has yet been written of any portion of the 
human family, and it were far better that the 
American people should never have been born 
than that they should live to have such a his- 
tory written of themselves. 

The skirts of the loyal States are free from 
the guilt and wretchedness of this fratricidal 
strife. History will bear testimony how zeal- 
ously, how unceasingly, and, I must add, how 
successfully, the Government of the United 



8 



REBELLION RECORD, 1860-61. 



States has striven to protect all the constitu- 
tional rights and institutions of the South, 
despite of all that the South herself has done 
and is doing to sacrifice them. The blows we 
are now called upon to strike, we will deal 
standing upon the threshold of our national life, 
and they will fall upon those who, under the 
promptings of a maddened ambition, would, 
with armed hordes, cross that threshold and 
destroy us. Let us then thoroughly rouse and 
nerve ourselves to the great work of duty that 
is before us. If it is to be done well, it should 
be done quickly. If we would spare both blood 
and treasure, we should move promptly and 
mightily. Were it possible at this moment to 
precipitate the whole physical force of the loyal 
States as an avalanche upon the South, it would 
be a measure not only of wisdom and economy, 
but eminently one of humanity also. Let us 
have faith and hope and courage, and all will 
yet be well. 

Fellow- citizens : I feel that I may have spoken 
to you with more emphasis and with more 
earnestness of suggestion than I am privileged 
to employ in your presence. If I have done so, 
you will forgive the freedom — I know you will 
— to that terrible conjuncture of public affairs 
in which it is my fortune to address you. If I 
had more interest than you have, or less interest 
than you have, in the tragic events and issues 
to which we have referred, you might well dis- 
trust me ; but I have precisely the same. If 
this Union is dismembered and the Government 
subverted, the grave of every earthly hope will 
open at my feet and it will open at your feet 
also. In the lives of families and of nations 
there arise from time to time emergencies of 
danger which press all their members into the 
same common council chamber ; and when the 
tempest is raging at sea, and all nautical skill 
seems at fault, and the laboring, quivering ves- 
sel shrieks out from every joint the agony of 
the conflict, all who are on board — alike the 
humblest sailor and the obscurest passenger — 
may rightfully speak, on that great principle of 
our nature which no human institutions can 
modify and no human despotism can subdue — 
the right of self-preservation. Even so, amid 
the heady currents of this national tragedy, I, 
but an humble citizen of our distracted and 
bleeding country, have ventured to lift up to- 
night the voice of counsel and of entreaty in 
your hearing. 

William Curtis Noyes, Esq., followed Mr. 
Ilolt, in a si)cccli of great eloquence and beauty, 
for which we liavo space for only a sliort quo- 
tation, lie said : " And now, Mr. President, I 
have to express my thanks to the honorable 



gentleman from Kentucky for the eminent pub- 
lic services which he has rendered — (applause) 
— not only in behalf of the Chamber of Com- 
merce, but in behalf of the city of New York, 
— (cheers) — and I know I may say in behalf of 
the State of New York. (Applause.) New 
York gives her hand to Kentucky. [Shakes 
hands with Mr. Holt amid tremendous cheer- 
ing.] She will give both hands, with her heart 
in it, to Kentucky. (Renewed cheering.) You, 
sir, found the Government in a condition of 
great pressure ; you gave it an impetus which 
brought it out of the rough sea in which it was 
wallowing. Another republic, at the period of 
its lowest depression, manfully acknowledged it 
by placing upon its coins a ship in full sail, 
under full canvas, knocked down almost in the 
trough of the sea, and they had for their motto 
— ' She drifts, none knows whither.' "We drift, 
we know where, and you are responsible for 
that drift. (Cheers.) Go on, sir, in your work 
of patriotism and benevolence ; go through the 
country and rouse it by the eloquent appeals 
that you can make, such as we have listened to 
to-night. (Applause.) Go on, sir, and may 
God prosper you in it, and you will receive as 
great a future reward in bringing this country 
to its right position upon these great questions 
as the great orator of Athens received Avhen he 
made his denunciations against Philip of Mace- 
don. (Loud cheering.) I beg leave to offer in 
conclusion, sir, this resolution : 

'■'•Eesolved, That the Hon. Joseph Ilolt, of Ken- 
tucky, by his unsullied character, in private as 
well as in public life ; by his unfaltering devo- 
tion to the Constitution and the Union ; by the 
prompt and successful measures promoted by 
him for their defence, and for the protection of 
the capital when in imminent peril from trai- 
torous domestic foes ; by his patriotic efforts 
throughout the country, and especially in his 
own State, in rallying the people to the support 
of the national Hag and our national integrity, 
and by his stirring and eloquent a])peal on this 
occasion, has entitled himself to the gratitude 
of his countrymen and to the admiration of the 
lovers of freedom and free popular institutions 
everywhere ; and that the thanks of this as- 
sembly be, and they are hereby gratefully ten- 
dered to him." 

The resolution was received with acclama- 
tions of aj)plause. 

After loud and repeated calls, Mr. Holt rose 
for a moment, and said : " I need not say, fel- 
low-citizens, that if the pulsations of my heart 
were words, they would tell you what I can 
never do— how deeply I thank you." (Loud 
and continued applause.) 



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